Idriss Deby

Idriss Deby (18 June 1952-) was President of Chad from 2 December 1990, succeeding Hissene Habre. Deby seized power from Habre in a military coup, bringing himself and his Patriotic Salvation Movement to power.

Biography
Idriss Deby was born in Fada, Chad on 18 June 1952, the son of a Zaghawa herder. Deby received military training in France before serving under Hissene Habre during the Chadian Civil War; in 1982, Habre made Deby the commander-in-chief of the Chadian military. In 1987, Deby inflicted heavy losses on invading forces from the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, and he became a war hero. However, he was exiled to Libya after Habre accused Deby and the military of plotting a coup d'etat against his regime; Habre had hundreds of Zaghawa people arrested and murdered in an ethnic cleansing campaign shortly afterwards. Deby moved to Sudan in 1989 and founded the Patriotic Salvation Movement, a Libyan and Sudanese-backed insurgent group that began a rebellion against Habre in October 1989. On 2 December 1990, Deby's forces captured the capital of N'Djamena and deposed Habre, and Deby became the new President of Chad. Deby created a one-party state and faced a civil war from 2005 to 2010 and several failed coup attempts, blaming Sudan for the violence and blaming foreign oil companies for his nation's poverty. Deby sent Chadian troops to interfere in conflicts in Nigeria, Mali, and the Central African Republic, hoping to mediate conflicts in Central Africa and achieve lasting peace. From 2016 to 2017, he served as President of the African Union, succeeding Robert Mugabe and preceding Alpha Conde.